


The Art of Journaling

by crochetaway



Series: Drabbles and OneShots [59]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Time Travel, Time-Turner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 10:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17423813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crochetaway/pseuds/crochetaway
Summary: A series of events lead Hermione Granger to travel through time to meet the love of her life.





	The Art of Journaling

**Author's Note:**

> **Created for Hermione's Haven Bingo 2019 Fest! This is for my B5 square which was James Potter as a pairing. No beta, just Grammarly. If you love this (or hate it) please let me know about in a review!**

Hermione Granger didn’t mean to fall in love with James Potter. It just sort of happened. Well, that’s also not entirely true. What happened was she found his journals in 12 Grimmauld Place. Who knew that James Potter kept journals? And how in the world had Sirius ended up with them at 12 Grimmauld Place? That whole timeline seemed somewhat fuzzy to Hermione, but perhaps it was Remus who ended up with the journals, who then shared them with Sirius? Which was how they ended up in London?

How they got there was way less important than what was inside. Inside, was a man Hermione found herself drawn to. He spoke so rawly of his love for his family and friends. His emotions were so bright, right there on the surface, she found herself reading them over and over and over again. She knew that she should give them to Harry. They weren’t hers, and Harry had always known less about his father than he had his mother. But, Hermione felt selfishly protective of them. Like Harry wouldn’t be able to appreciate them in the same way that Hermione could.

And then there was that bit in the seventh journal. The one that covered the years just after Hogwarts and before he had married Lily. Yes, that’s right, years. See, Hermione had always been under the impression that James and Lily had married right after Hogwarts, in the summer of 1978. But according to James Potter’s journal, he hadn’t married Lily until January of 1980, which meant that Lily was already pregnant with Harry at that point.

In the summer of 1978, James had moved into an apartment in Diagon Alley with Sirius and Remus. And apparently, he dated a woman during that period. Someone he only identified as J. Someone who very clearly wasn’t Lily. And the things James wrote about J had Hermione’s heart beating fast and hard. And if she was honest with herself, it had her knickers damp and her core aching. Who knew that James Potter was a master of writing some of the sexiest things Hermione had ever read?

But the sexual encounters he detailed in his journals were not what made Hermione fall in love with him. It was his poetry. The way he weaved his words with such strong emotions and feelings… Hermione knew it in her bones that she’d never find another man who evoked such incredible feelings in her as James Potter’s writing did.

She felt sad knowing she would never meet him. Never be able to talk to him. And worse, she was starting to feel jealous of J and even Lily. Although, his later journals prove that his feelings toward Lily were a fraction of what he felt toward J. Lily was the woman he’d pined after as a teenager, but who spurned him. When J disappeared—James was sure Voldemort killed her—he’d turned to Lily in need of comfort. One bout of comfort sex and they were getting married just months later.

Hermione wished she knew more about who J was. She wanted to meet the woman who inspired such words from James, but like James, J too was lost to the past.

It wasn’t until Hermione found the Time-Turner in the bottom of her trunk that a plan began to formulate in her head. True, the Time-Turner only went a few hours back into the past, but Hermione had found that adding a ring or two to the Time-Turner would solve that issue. Another benefit of living in 12 Grimmauld Place: access to Dark and dangerous texts that normally she’d never even know _existed_. It was one of those books that detailed how early Time-Turners were created. And how easy it was to modify existing Time-Turners. No wonder the Ministry had banned that book. It _was_ dangerous if you didn’t know what you were doing. Luckily, Hermione was confident in her abilities. She just needed to add two rings to the Time-Turner. One for years, and another for decades.

Unsurprisingly, at least to Hermione, it only took her a week to create the rings and add them to the Time-Turner. Now, with her beefed-up Time-Turner, Hermione was ready. She hadn’t actively _thought_ about what her plan was, but she knew how far back she needed to go: twenty-one years should do it. It was the summer of 1999 now, which would put her back to the summer of 1978. Right when James had met J.

Without giving it too much thought, Hermione Apparated to Diagon Alley, when she arrived, she ducked down a side alley, one not traveled much and pulled out the Time-Turner. Taking one last deep breath, Hermione turned the rings the appropriate number of times. Twice on the decade ring and once on the year ring. 

Traveling back a few hours was disorienting. Going back decades was positively nauseating. By the time the world slowed around her, Hermione was on her knees, vomiting the contents of her stomach onto the ground.

She staggered to her feet and Scourgified the mess. Needing to be sure of _when_ she was, Hermione stumbled out into Diagon Alley proper and promptly ran right into someone else, so hard that she would have fallen onto her arse if the other person’s quick reflexes hadn’t stopped her.

Firm hands grasped her arms above her elbows.

“Are you alright?” a lovely, deep voice asked her. She stared up into a pair of eyes that were the most brilliant shade of hazel. She felt she could lose herself in them. “I’m James,” the man murmured.

Hermione realized precisely who it was that had caught her. She made a snap decision. One that would probably haunt her for years to come, but at that moment, she didn’t think about the future consequences of her choice. “Hi, I’m Jean.”

James smiled at her, his face transformatively handsome and Hermione knew her fate was sealed. 

_~Fin~_


End file.
